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March 18, 2015

Jeb Bush Calls For The Elimination Of The Federal Minimum Wage

At an event in South Carolina on Tuesday, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush was asked whether he thinks the country should raise the minimum wage or whether the wage should be left up to private companies.

“We need to leave it to the private sector,” he responded. “I think state minimum wages are fine. The federal government shouldn’t be doing this.” He went on, “The federal government doing this will make it harder and harder for the first rung of the ladder to be reached, particularly for young people, particularly for people that have less education.”

Watch:

He went on to connect his opposition to a federal minimum wage to his focus on income inequality. “We’re moving to a world that is sticky in the ends, where it’s harder for people in poverty to move up and where the rich are doing really well and the middle is getting squeezed,” he said. “And any idea that makes, that perpetuates that is one that I would oppose, and I think this minimum wage idea is exactly one of those things.” He added that the people at the bottom “would be likely the ones that would lose their job. That’s how it’s always worked.”

If the minimum wage were left up to the states, right now many workers would still fare okay: the majority have raised their wages above the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour. But two states actually have a lower minimum wage and five have no minimum at all.

But if the minimums were simply left to companies themselves, there’s no way to know if they would raise them or let wages fall. Despite record corporate profits, wages are only growing at 2 percent year over year, the slowest rate since the 1960s. American workers have increased their productivity substantially over the past decade but experienced flat or falling wage growth. Bush pointed out that Walmart voluntarily raised its wages, but that may at least be in part due to the fact that state minimum wage hikes forced it to increase starting pay in a third of its stores.

While Bush worries about job losses, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that higher wages don’t ruin the job market. Companies actually stand to see an increase in productivity, performance, and customer service along with a reduction in turnover and an increase in the quality of job candidates. These benefits can significantly offset the cost of paying workers more, even in low-wage jobs.

1 comment:

DAVOS ............ the Billionaire's UNION MEETING ...................... while the "Freedom to Work" JUDAS ISCARIOTS have been undermining the Worker's organizations,the BILLIONAIRES have become ever MORE organized. From the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, Bilderbergers,DAVOS ..............they have tightened the noose around the neck of the Working Man. They screen members in their FRATERNITIES and at Country Club socials .......1) Doctors have UNIONS, one is the American Medical Association.2) Lawyers have UNIONS, one is the American Bar Association.3) ALL Professions have UNIONS ...... they have Trade Associations, They have Trade PublicationsFraternities, Country Club Memberships ............. P.S. YOU pay for THEIR Union Dues &Meetings.Without Unions the WORKERS would not have living wages, vacations, sick days, pensions, 40 hour weeks, overtime, SAFE work conditions..... LOSING all that? Just as the Unions are undermined and destroyed? WHAT A COINCIDENCE !!!! Be sure to THANK a "right to SLAVE" propagandizer next time you see one.

American Wages have stagnated since the 1980s, and working conditions have worsened. What happened then?Reagan waged war on the Working People of America (1)Launching the war with his attack on unionization, firing the air-traffic controllers and (2) Introducing the concepts of low paid part-time and contract workers. Remember how Henry Ford introduced the concept that if you paid your people enough money, they would/could buy the products they were building? Well Reagan destroyed that concept, and brought us HERE, to THIS economic crash. Reagan was no "hero" who destroyed Communism. Reagan was a coward who HID the fact that the USSR was dead on it's feet and collapsing. Reagan created fear in the People to get support for a wasteful looting of the Public Treasury by the Military Industrial Thieves. Finally, Reagan, the week after leaving office, ran over to Japan to collect at LEAST $6MILLION in "speaking fees" which was a nice term for BRIBE for keeping our markets open to the Japanese, and thus SELLING OUT American Workers. No, Reagan was not a great man, he was a Low Life Credit Card spendthrift.